


Tiger by the Tail

by Lillian_Shepherd



Series: Tiger Trail [1]
Category: The Professionals
Genre: Action/Adventure, Rape is not explicit, Written in 1983!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-13
Updated: 2012-02-13
Packaged: 2017-10-31 02:50:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/339052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lillian_Shepherd/pseuds/Lillian_Shepherd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Think again," Cowley snapped. "You've a tiger loose; it'll kill anything that gets in its path. My advice is to call off everything except your alert to the ports. If your men do spot him, just contact us and leave the arrest to my men."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tiger by the Tail

Bodie awoke slowly. He stretched out in the sunlight streaming in through the half-closed curtains and floated contentedly within a conviction that this was going to be a good day, though he was damned if he could remember why he was so sure of the fact.

Sunshine. Now, in late August, it took until at least 8 o'clock for the sunlight to negotiate the corner of the building and reach this window. It must be much later than he had thought. Doyle would be furious...

Then he remembered why he was so sure that this was going to be a good day. A whole week's leave, for once, and the delectable Karen to share it with.

He yawned hugely.

Weather perfect, too. His luck couldn't stay this good, though, he reflected. It was all too wonderful to be true. Something was bound to come along and spoil it. Cowley, probably, with an assignment that needed his urgent attention.

Then he grinned to himself. He and Karen had planned a trip into the country, far away from ringing telephones.

Not away from the car radio, though. On the other hand, it was possible for that radio to suffer an ... accidental ... breakdown.

It was definitely going to be a very good day indeed.

 

"Why wasn't I told about this at once?" Cowley demanded.

The voice on the other end of the telephone line sounded surprised at the angry tone. "I know that CI5 made the original arrest, Mr. Cowley, but a prison break is still a police matter. You don't have the manpower for a county-wide, perhaps country-wide search, and all the ports and airports have already been alerted. I have informed you of the fact out of courtesy, and this conversation is delaying my call to Interpol - after all, he could be out of the country by now. We've done everything possible. Even CI5 can't do more."

"Think again," Cowley snapped. "You've a tiger loose; it'll kill anything that gets in its path. My advice is to call off everything except your alert to the ports. If your men do spot him, just contact us and leave the arrest to my men."

The voice grew frosty. "The man is an escaped criminal, convicted of robbery and murder. I have my responsibilities, Cowley. I can't just hand them over to you."

"You'll have to. Your men are outclassed. Your target is a professional mercenary and he'll have no compunctions at all about killing your men if they get in his way."

"They are paid to take—"

"I'm not going to argue with you further, Sir Richard. I have the authority to take over the operation, and I am using it."

"I'll speak to the Home Secretary—"

"Please do." George Cowley put down the receiver very carefully, because he wanted to slam it down hard. The man didn't know what he was dealing with - but Cowley did all right...

He could still remember the smell of wet bracken, the stench of oil from the wrecked motorcycles, the pain in his shoulder and the taste of fear in his mouth as he had realised that he was alone, with a band of ruthless men about to spring their trap around him.

Enrico Krivas...

It would have been so much simpler if Bodie had killed him.

Bodie.

Cowley still did not know the reasons for the hatred between Krivas and one of his top operatives, but he did remember Bodie, his clothes torn and his skin bruised and streaked with blood, helping Doyle drag an unconscious Krivas to the waiting car, and the wolf's- head grin on his battered face as he said, "Resisted arrest, didn't he?" before flinging him into the rear seat.

He remember the trial, too, and Krivas' eyes never leaving Bodie's face, eyes black with the rage and hatred that never clouded his expression or his voice, eyes that promised death.

His calm demeanour had not helped Krivas, who had been given sentences of life and of 30 years, to run consecutively, with a recommendation that he serve the full term. Effectively, he had been removed from society for as long as he continued to exist. That had given Cowley a feeling of satisfaction; it had been a job well done. It had also brought a feeling of personal relief that he had not tried to analyse fully at the time. Now he had to do so.

He had been relieved because there was no threat to Bodie's life from the man in the dock. No surprise in that; he valued Bodie and was fond of him - although there was no way that the younger man would ever be allowed to realise that.

So... Krivas now belonged to CI5. What would be his next move? The sensible one would be to try and leave the country, but. . .

Cowley reached for the intercom. "I want to speak to the psychiatrist attached to the high security prison and Hallingrove. At once. And recall 3/7 and 4/5. And have all currently unassigned agents report in immediately."

"At once, sir."

 

 

Ray Doyle looked singularly annoyed as he stamped up to Cowley's office. Damn it, it wasn't often he got a week's leave, and this time the Cow had cancelled it before it had even decently begun. _Why_ had he been stupid enough to answer the telephone?

"Ah, Doyle," Cowley said, as he entered, "Where's Bodie?"

Doyle looked about him theatrically. "I don't see him, sir."

"Neither do I, 4/5, but I presume that it is possible that you might know where he is."

"We're not Siamese twins," Doyle retorted. "He has his life, I have mine. He's probably off with a bird somewhere. Does it matter?"

"We have not been able to contact him."

"Maybe he just doesn't want to be contacted," Doyle said brightly, happily aware that he was firmly propelling his partner mirewards. "Try every unmarried woman in the phone book. Maybe you'll touch lucky."

Cowley glared at him. "This is not the time for levity, 4/5." He paused, to give the name its due significance. "Krivas."

The name was vaguely familiar to Doyle. He was obviously expected to know it, so he played for time, trying to look intelligent, as he ran through a mental list of current CI5 targets. The name wasn't on it.

"What about Krivas, sir?" he asked craftily.

"He's escaped."

Suddenly, the unwanted memories flooded in: Bodie, his face an unrecognisable mask of hatred and fury, making diabolical threats to a man helpless before the menace of his gun, a man whose face showed the same animal rage and hate, together with an equally obvious terror.

Krivas. Leader of an army for hire. Mercenary. Killer.

Bodie... who was suddenly frighteningly like him, as it had seemed to Doyle then, and it was a memory of his partner that he had tried to push aside and then forget completely over the last four years...

But Bodie had let Krivas live, and now the mercenary was on the loose again. Last time, there had been a trail of bodies and fear stretched across the whole South East. This time...

"Have we got his possible escape routes covered?" Doyle asked.

"Yes, but I've a feeling he's got something more in mind than escape. That's why we must locate 3/7."

Doyle was surprised, and showed it. "You're talking about revenge... but there's no reason to suppose he's going after Bodie, sir. I don't even remember him giving the usual `I'll get you if it's the last thing I do' speech from the dock."

"No, but the prison psychiatrist thinks—" The ringing phone interrupted Cowley and he reached over to pick it up. "Cowley. What? Damn it, I told you to keep your men away from him!" Doyle was surprised by the profanity and by the fury in Cowley's voice. He suddenly decided to stop making jokes and to start playing the situation very coolly indeed.

"Where is he now?" Cowley was asking. "Right. Throw a cordon round the area - and get the networks to put out warnings to the public. We'll be right over." He slammed down the phone and hit the intercom. "Put out an emergency message to all available agents to assemble at the edge of Hazley Heath - the Ramsden Road area. Have the special armaments brought in there too. And find 3/7!"

"Yes, sir." Even the unflappable Betty sounded surprised.

"Come on, Doyle."

 

Doyle was driving the Rover as it roared out of CI5 HQ, Cowley in the front passenger seat beside him, and agents Ted Jenkins and Francine McHenry in the back seat, having been scooped up by Cowley on the way out, despite their protests about being on their way to continue the surveillance of an IRA hangout in South London.

"I take it he's been located," Doyle opened cautiously.

"Aye, he's been located. Two beat coppers stopped a van in Selleigh. We don't know yet what made them suspicious, but we do know that they're dead. We also have a witness to the van's departure. It was heading into the Hazley area, probably towards the Heath."

"That doesn't make sense," said Doyle. "Krivas must have an escape route planned. Bodie might be able to make a guess—"

"Except that we do not know where Bodie is. This time, I _will_ have his hide," Cowley threatened. "He knows that he's supposed to stay in touch. Damn it, if Krivas finds him before we do... "

"Finds Bodie?" Francine asked. "What's Bodie got to do with this?"

"I still think you're jumping to conclusions, sir," Doyle said, ignoring her.

"The prison psychiatrist at Hallingrove was worried enough to waive his ethical code. He says that Krivas is a psychotic. Cutting away the technicalities and medical jargon, it comes down to the fact that Krivas is no longer sane - if he ever was. He's obsessed with one thing... one man."

"Bodie."

"Correct. Krivas now has just one purpose in life - to kill Bodie, which does not mean that he won't kill anyone else who happens to get in his way. I suspect that Krivas wants to be found but on his terms. And by us."

"By Bodie."

"In Krivas' mind, it's the same thing."

 

It was as she turned into Ramsden Road that Sara Leicester noticed the two children moving across the waste ground at the edge of the Heath, and she groaned silently to herself as she recognised them. Jan Corrigan and Mick Barr; the two worst tearaways in the class of 9 year olds she had taught until last July - and they were heading towards the high walls that surrounded the ruins of St. Catherine's. They had been told time and again that the bombed out Catholic church was dangerous, but that had only encouraged them to haunt it, though how they got into the grounds was anyone's guess.

Sara groaned again. It was nearing the end of the summer holidays. She was off duty. That pair wouldn't, thank God, be in her class next term...

Even as she thought of all the good reasons why she should not interfere she began to run, cutting over the rough ground, thanking heaven that she was wearing jeans and sneakers. Gerry, her husband, was on morning shift and she was on her way to meet him to spend the afternoon working on the old canal barge they were converting. Hell, she was going to be late.

Jan and Mick saw her coming, looked at each other, and turned to flee, but Sara had played hockey for her county. She was fast. The kids split up. Unhesitatingly, Sara followed Jan. That girl would be the ringleader, as always, in whatever mischief was planned. Three more strides and Sara collared her. Recognising defeat, the child halted.

"Mick!" Sara shouted. "Mick Barr! Come back here or I shall go to your mother immediately."

Mick slowed. His mother was a formidable woman. He decided that he would rather face Sara, who was all right, for a grown-up and a teacher. Mick didn't like grown-ups and teachers were the second worst sort of grown-up, after policemen - but his mother was worse than any of them.

He shambled back towards Sara, glowering at her out of dark eyes almost hidden under the mop of straight fair hair.

Sara turned Jan to face her. The thin, rather bony face was perfectly composed and Sara, not for the first time, thought how unfair life was. The appalling Jan was not only highly intelligent, seemingly fearless and a natural leader, she was going to be a beauty too. Sara, whose face was round and pleasant, without the child's superb bone structure, and whose hair and eyes were a most ordinary brown, not chestnut and aquamarine, was frankly envious.

"Yes, Mrs. Leicester?" Jan's voice, which varied between her parents' standard southern English and Mick's London vernacular, was not at the most educated end of its scale.

"What are you doing here, Janice?"

"Mick an' me were just walkin', Mrs. Leicester."

"Yeah. Whatcha wanna chase us like that fer?" Mick demanded aggressively.

Sara ignored him, concentrating on Jan. "You didn't just happened to be walking in the direction of St. Catherine's, did you, by any chance?"

"We can walk in any direction we want," Mick growled. "Ain't no law that says we can't."

"There are laws against trespass."

"We're not trespassing here," Jan said promptly. "Mum says this land belongs to the Council _an'_ there's a right of way." Cursing Jan's informative mother - whom she actually liked very much - to oblivion, Sara said, "You know why St. Catherine's is locked up, don't you?"

"It was bombed in the war an' it's dangerous," Jan said, with the boredom of one repeating a lesson learned by rote.

"You don't want to be blown up by an unexploded bomb, do you? Or have the building fall down on you or Mick or Cass or Tom?"

"We ain't that stupid," said Mick, scowling, his hands thrust into the pockets of his jeans.

"We wouldn't do anything dangerous, Mrs. Leicester," Jan said, with an attempt at wide-eyed innocence. Sara wondered why she bothered. No-one could have believed it for years.

"'ey, look, someone's got lost," Mick put in, in an attempt at distraction, as a dark blue minivan bounced across the waste ground towards them. "Probably looking fer the Industrial Estate. I'll go an' tell 'em... "

"Michael! You know perfectly well you must never speak to strangers."

"What I wanna know is, 'ow can ya ever get ta know anyone or anyfink—" Mick stopped complaining as the van drew up beside them and a thin, dark man disembarked.

"Excuse me," he said, in an educated but foreign accented voice. "I wonder if you can help me. I seem to be lost. Do you know the way to Milton Road?"

Sara thought about it. "I don't seem to know the name but then, I'm not native to this area."

"There ain't no such place 'ere," Mick stated.

"Are you sure? My friend said—"

"Sure I'm sure. You friend's either lyin' or 'e don't know what 'e's talkin' about."

"Michael!" Sara was scandalised.

"No, the boy is quite right." Without warning, the man's arm hooked around Mick's neck, choking him, and an enormous gun was nuzzling his ear. "Woman, if you scream or move, I will shoot him."

Sara was silent and still. Jan, though, dived straight at him, only to be snatched up by a hand that appeared from the mini's cab. "Gotcha!" said the man who clambered out, holding the kicking Jan well away from his body. "What we gonna do now, Krivas?"

Sara was increasingly conscious of their isolation. Even if she screamed, she doubted if anyone would hear her. Certainly, neither of the men seemed worried by Jan's howls of protest.

"Get in the van, all of you. Marks, you drive. Back to the church."

 

There was silence as the van moved off. Jan and Mick sat together on the floor with their backs against the thin side wall, drawing together and away from Sara. Krivas knelt by the rear doors, his face brooding, his hand unmoving despite the heavy weight of the gun. That looked larger by the second.

"What are you going to do to us?" Sara asked.

"You don't really want to know. So shut up."

"You're that escaped criminal," said Jan. "I heard about you on the radio. You on the run? We supposed to be your hostages?"

"Wha'ee do?" Mick asked.

"Shot some fuzz or somethin'."

"Be quiet - and remember that I only need one of you," Krivas snapped.

A few minutes later they pulled up outside St. Catherine's locked and rusting gates. Marks got out, unfastened the padlocks and unchained the gates before moving the van through into the overgrown drive.

Jan asked, "How'd you get a key to them? We've bin tryin' for ages."

"Inquisitive brat, ain't you? Well, it's simple. We cut the ol' chain an' replaced it an' the lock with our own." Marks was plainly pleased with this manoeuvre.

"Clever! A' course, we didn't have the bread to pull a stunt like that."

"I told you to shut up," Krivas snarled. "Marks, go and lock the gates."

"Sure, sure, keep yer 'air on," Marks muttered but he moved quickly to obey.

Sara watched with growing fear as Krivas tied the children's hands in front of them, then sent Marks off with them with orders to `Put them in that top room and tie their feet. Then get back here.'

As soon as Marks and the children were gone, Krivas put his gun aside and moved towards Sara. "It's been a long time since I've seen a woman," he said softly. "You're not exactly what I would have ordered - but you'll do. You'll definitely do."

Terrified now, Sara tried to climb into the driving seat to reach the side door, but Krivas dragged her back. Desperately, she raked his face with her nails.

His retaliatory blow was hard and ruthless. Sara hit the floor of the van and lay sobbing, her mind reeling away in disbelief as she felt the strong hands tear her clothes from her.

 

Jan and Mick looked at each other in disgust. They already knew the room in which they were imprisoned. It was the topmost intact room of St. Catherine's church tower, the one that had once held the innards of the now vanished church clock. It was small and square, with an unsafe wooden floor and a corner open to the sky where part of the wall and roof had collapsed. The four faces of the clock had been smashed away so that all sides of the tower were open to the warm summer breeze. The only way in was through the trap door in the floor, and they couldn't use that to get out with their hands and ankles bound. That was much more uncomfortable than it looked on the telly and much less easy to escape.

"What d'you suppose is goin' on?" Jan asked Mick. "I suppose he's a terrorist. IRA, maybe."

"'e don't sound Irish t'me."

"Or maybe a mafia hit man."

"'e don't sound eye-tie either."

"Well, what do you think he is, then?"

"'e's a nutter." Mick spoke with gloomy certainty.

In her heart, Jan agreed with her friend's assessment but, as it scared her, she denied it at once. "Naw, he's a terrorist."

"Okay, so 'e's a terrorist an' a nutter!"

"I wonder what's going on?" Jan felt it incumbent upon her, as leader, to ask such questions.

"I dunno, but they're bound to blame us. They alus do," Mick stated gloomily.

This was a fact of life and Jan did not bother to deny it; instead she humped herself across the floor to the hole where the western clock face had been. As she knew, it was a superb vantage point, giving a view over almost all of the church grounds, and now she concentrated on what was happening below.

 

As Marks emerged from the base of the tower the van doors opened and Krivas leaped out. There was no sign of Mrs. Leicester, Jan noticed at once, and with growing alarm, and Marks joined Krivas by the van. The two men spoke for a moment, then Marks turned towards the van doors with sudden energy.

Jan's eyes widened as she saw Krivas pull out a gun with a speed she had hitherto only associated with cowboys and pointed it at Marks' back. There was a quiet crack. It wasn't the sound Jan expected but she knew it was the gun firing.

Marks fell. There was something funny about the shape of his head, Jan thought, but it wasn't easy to tell from this distance. Krivas picked him up, slung the limp body over his shoulder and tipped it into the back of the van. Then he slammed the rear doors, climbed into the cab, and sent it trundling away down the weed encrusted drive towards the ornate gates.

"You suppose 'e's comin' back?" Mick asked.

"I dunno. I 'ope not. If he doesn't the others are goin' to turn up sooner or later an' get us out of here."

"Yeah. Let's 'ope we don't starve first."

"They'll 'ave the search parties out just as soon as Mum misses me an' they're bound to look up here. Old `they-need-a-good-'iding' Evans is bound to think of this place the moment they call in the cops. 'E's chased us off often enough."

"An' if 'e does come back?"

"I think we'd better escape before he does, Mick. I mean, if James Bond can do it... "

 

Chief Superintendent Elliott was a ferret of a man, just over the regulation police height, who regarded Cowley with respect and the three operatives accompanying him with mistrust. They looked a right set of roughnecks, even the woman.

Now, as he spread the map on the bonnet of the car, he wondered what sort of man they were chasing, that such people were apparently needed to capture him. He said, "He was last sighted here, in a blue minivan. We don't have the registration. Apparently, he wasn't alone. We've sealed off this area and we're having the local radio stations broadcast warnings of the `do not have a go' variety. The national stations will carry it on their next scheduled news bulletins. There's been no sign of the minivan _or_ Krivas at the roadblocks. I suppose he could have gone to ground. With your approval Mr. Cowley, I'll order a house to house search of the area--"

"Dangerous, Elliott." Cowley stared down at the map. "You've already lost two men."

"Well, if you believe police lives are more important than public safety--"

"I very much doubt that Krivas is interested in the public," Cowley interrupted for the second time. He glared at Doyle. "Damn it, we need Bodie. He knows Krivas well enough to be able to guess what he's thinking."

"No report on him yet," Ted Jenkins contributed. "Hell sir, the way he drives he could be anywhere between London and Londonderry."

Doyle resolutely ignored the comment, thinking back four long years, trying to remember every detail, to hear his partner's voice as he talked about Krivas and trying not to remember the hatred that had underlain the words.

When he spoke, he startled everyone. "Krivas isn't an original thinker, not likely to do the unexpected. Last time, he went to ground, and went to ground outside the city. He's a mercenary. . . Bodie met him in Africa... he's not a villain in the normal sense; he's a soldier, of a sort." He stared hard at the map.

"The Heath?" Cowley questioned.

"It's the only open country around here," said Francine, "so if Ray's right about Krivas, it's the logical place for him to go."

"It's too open," said Elliott. "There's no cover there.

Besides, Mr. Cowley, he must know that it's hopeless. We've got him cornered and we're bound to get him in the end. If I were him I'd try and break through the cordon on--"

It wasn't Elliott's day for finishing sentences. Cowley cut him off again. "No. If I'm right he wants us to find him - on his terms. The killing of the policemen was a deliberate challenge. He wanted us to know where he was."

"You really do think this is all aimed at Bodie, don't you?"

Jenkins was plainly incredulous.

"I take it that you don't. What about you, Doyle?"

Doyle shook his head slightly. "I'm not sure. You could be right, if what the prison psychiatrist says is true - but that doesn't make his actions any easier to fathom. He can't know that Bodie will come after him, sir."

"Don't you know your partner yet, Doyle? Don't you realise that if he knew about Krivas he would be here right now - whether I wanted him here or not? Krivas does."

Doyle scowled. He did not want to think about the fact that the vendetta between Krivas and Bodie was anything but one sided. "Oh yeah," he said tightly. "Bodie hates him and he knows it."

He looked again at the map. Bodie would know where Krivas would go, but Bodie wasn't here. Put himself in Krivas' place, then. No. He couldn't imagine what it was like to be Krivas but... Krivas was a soldier. He thought as a soldier. That was how Bodie thought too. It was much easier to put himself in Bodie's place, to remember how his partner reacted when threatened...

Go to ground.

Doyle remembered Bodie holding off Willis' men from the top of a gasholder.

Somewhere high. Good all round vision. Easily defensible. Cover. Viewpoints. Lines of sight.

His finger stabbed down at the map. "What's this?"

"That? That's St. Catherine's. Roman Catholic church, bombed in the war and never re-built. It's little more than a ruin. We have the devil's own time keeping the local kids out. The tower's not safe."

Cowley and Doyle looked at each other on the word: `tower.'

"You think that's where he's gone to ground?" Cowley asked.

"Could be." Doyle was unwilling to explain his reasoning.

Cowley nodded and re-folded the map. "We'll try it. Let's go."

 

Elliott's police car led the way and Doyle again drove the Rover. As they screamed their processional way past the police road blocks, Cowley called CI5 HQ and vented his anger on the unfortunate R/T operator when he found that there was still no contact with Bodie.

Doyle kept his eyes on the road. So much as one twitch from him and the Cow would probably give him a long lecture on why he should know where his partner was. Doyle had never been able to see how anyone could keep track of Bodie, anyway...

"That must be the church," Cowley said, pointing at the squat black tower rising above trees and menacing, glass-barbed walls." Ray - hard right!" Francine ordered suddenly.

Doyle obeyed instantly, almost turning the Rover over on its side as it slewed across the road. Then he spotted what Fran had seen: the blue mini van parked on the rough ground at the skirts of the Heath, its back doors ajar. Even as the Rover straightened up, bounding towards its target, a naked body was rolled out of the van's rear doors and onto the hard packed earth of the track.

A naked body. A young woman. Bloodstained. Falling limply. And another body - a man's - already lay in the short grass to one side of the track.

Doyle gunned the Rover forward, pulling out his gun with his right hand as he steered with his left. Cowley rolled down his window and leaned out, his gun at the ready. Doyle didn't have to look at Fran or Ted but he was quite certain that they were also ready to attack.

The Mini lurched forward, rear doors flapping as it picked up speed in retreat. Krivas had obviously noticed the pursuit. Doyle grinned to himself; the Rover's greater power and momentum would ensure that the van was overhauled within seconds.

They drew level with the rear doors... the rear wheels... Cowley rested his gun muzzle on the edge of the window, ready to fire into the Mini's cab as soon as he could see Krivas. Doyle pushed the Rover even harder and it roared forward.

There was no-one in the Mini's driving seat. The cab was empty.

Instantly, Doyle swung the Rover's nose around, crashing the big car's weight into the smaller van, and shaking everyone's teeth. The mini van swerved, tilted, teetered, then buried its front wheels in a ditch.

Doyle braked. Cowley was out of his door long before the Rover stopped, hitting the ground in a roll, and coming up with the gun ready in his hand, but by then Fran and Ted were also out and running back along the track at a speed that he could never hope to match.

Fran reached the van first and leaped in through the open doors, then spun round and called back to Ted, "He's not—"

She looked mildly surprised as a gun bellowed and blood exploded from her chest, then she fell, very slowly, the pistol slipping from her fingers to reach the ground just before she did.

Cowley rolled into the ditch, knowing that Doyle would now be behind the Rover. Ted Jenkins was flat on the ground with his head down, in far from adequate cover.

Krivas had out-thought them. He must have put the minivan in gear and bailed out of the rear doors as soon as the Rover passed them. Now he was in good cover, halfway between the van and the bodies he had dumped, within a tangled mass of hawthorn, bramble and willow herb.

Doyle was firing to give Jenkins cover to move, and Cowley did the same. As Jenkins wriggled away into the long grass, Doyle arrived beside his chief.

"I'll try and get behind him," he said. "Keep him busy, sir." Then he scooted around the Mini and vanished from Cowley's view.

Cowley levelled his gun at the hawthorn bush and fired again.

 

I've got to move, Sara thought. I've got to get away. Get to Gerry. Get to Gerry. Oh God, how will he bear to touch me...?

She could feel the heat of the sun on her body; feel the breeze on her naked skin, cooler where it caressed drying blood. Somewhere close, a blackbird was singing.

And there was pain... the sound of gunfire... the sickening smell of the dead body lying so close to her...

Oh God, Gerry, I need you... Please come. Please...

Even her tears had dried on her face and she could find no more.

I must move, Sara thought, but her muscles would not obey.

Her limbs seemed tied down to the prickly grass.

It was then that she remembered the children.

Oh God, Jan and Mick. She had to reach them, free them from that madman before he... Jan! After what Krivas had done to her, he might decide that Jan... _No._

Hardly knowing what she was doing, Sara clamped to her hands and knees, then to her feet. The world was blurred about her, her eyes swollen with crying and blackened with the heavy blows Krivas had delivered when she struggled.

Get to Jan and Mick. Free them.

Forcing her rubbery, aching legs into action, ignoring the pain, Sara staggered forward on her self-appointed task.

It was Cowley who saw Sara first, a battered, bloodstained apparition tottering straight towards the minivan, straight into the line of fire.

"Get down!" Cowley yelled, loosing a shot in Krivas' direction.

Sara heard the yell but was too far gone in misery to realise that the order was directed to her. She stumbled, gathered herself, and ran on.

Cowley looked for Ted Jenkins and saw that he was already crouching, getting ready to run. He fired once towards Krivas' hiding place, then leaped out of cover as Cowley let rip with three quick shots— all he had left in his gun.

As Cowley frantically reloaded, Jenkins ran on, jinking to left and right. There was still no sign of Doyle.

Shots from the hawthorn bush bracketed Jenkins.

He had almost reached Sara when the shot hit him in the back, right between the shoulder blades. He pitched forwards, diving for Sara with the very last effort of will and muscle that he would ever make, and bore her to the ground.

He was dead before they hit the grass.

Sara screamed; a long, continuing, thin, high pitched wail, it was the noise of a woman pushed beyond endurance.

Crouching in the gorse bushes behind Krivas' position, Doyle heard the noise with his ears and his guts.

Christ! What was going on down there?

Bodie, where the hell are you when I need you? Ray thought angrily. What Bodie didn't know about sneaking up on someone in open country wasn't worth knowing. Doyle himself felt a little unsure of his ability to move in undetected against Krivas. Bodie had respected Krivas, and Doyle wouldn't have liked to attempt this against Bodie. Moving very cautiously, he sidled around the bushes and slid into a clump of willow herb. That felt more familiar. The stuff had covered the bomb sites he had played on as a kid.

The stalks rustled as he pushed through them, but he knew that the screaming would cover any noise he made.

He could see Krivas' hawthorn bush now, a twisted mess of green and brown bumps and spikes, but there was no sign of his quarry.

Krivas had gone.

Doyle advanced with caution.

 

When Jenkins fell, the firing stopped.

Cowley held down fury. Two of his agents dead, now, with nothing to show for their lives, and Krivas still at large. Then there was the girl to consider. At least she was no longer trying to move, though her screaming tore at his nerves.

Doyle would need help. The best thing he could do was to circle around in the opposite direction and come at Krivas from the other side.

As Cowley rose to run, his leg gave way under him, waves of agony shooting from ankle to hip. His face contorted with pain and, despite every effort of will, he sank slowly to the ground, his back against the side of the minivan, unable to do anything more than curse his own weakness.

It was then that he heard the car engine.

 

The hairs at the back of Doyle's neck were bristling as he halted in the shadow of the remains of an old hedge, the straggly hawthorn bushing out over him. He still couldn't see Krivas, but all his instincts told him he was being watched. He kept low, using the cover as much as he could, every sense alert.

There was the sound of a car engine. Doyle glanced quickly at the track and saw a police car bouncing towards him.

Elliott. Well, it had taken him long enough to decide to follow...

Feet hit the back of his shoulders, bowling him to the ground. He tried to twist as he fell, cursing himself for not taking the elementary precaution of looking above his head.

"No," a voice snarled, and his gun was kicked from his hand.

Something cold pressed down against his neck. Doyle knew that he was going to die, and all he could think was, I fucked it up...There was a sharp gasp and an exclamation in a language Doyle didn't know, then a hand gripped his shoulder and he was jerked upwards and onto his back. He found himself looking up into Krivas' face. Thinner now, the receding hair greying, the dark eyes... strange... yet he was instantly recognisable.

The recognition was mutual. The expression on Krivas' face became terrifying, full of anger and triumph and hate.

"You..." Then, harshly, "Where's Bodie?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?"

Krivas hit Doyle then, hard, the gun butt catching the edge of his jaw with a force that made his head spin.

The car engine stopped.

Krivas dragged Doyle to his feet. "Walk," he snarled at him. "Remember that I am right behind you and that nothing would give me more pleasure than to leave you with your guts torn out for Bodie to find..."

Swaying, Doyle started in the direction he was pushed. He was still dazed from the blow, but his mind was already searching for a means of escape because as sure as hell no-one was going to come and rescue him.

 

There had been no gunfire for what seemed like a very long time.

Elliott's car had pulled to a stop next to Sara and its doors had opened but, on Cowley's warning yell, its occupants had shown enough sense to stay where they were, though they had pulled the woman into the car with them.

Where was Doyle? Cowley wondered. There had been no fire from him and none from Krivas' gun that could not be accounted for. The boom of that .44 Magnum was unmistakable. Whatever had happened it had not involved a shootout. He began to consider another attempt at a sweep himself now that the pain had subsided.

Suddenly, a figure in blue uniform detached itself from the police car and ran swiftly towards Cowley.

Cowley cursed, started a shout to the policeman to get down, then realised that if Krivas was going to shoot him he had already missed the ideal opportunity.

"Quiet!" Cowley snapped.

Recognising the tone of authority, the policeman kept silence and they waited together, listening.

No sound except birdsong.

Duty prodded the policeman into speech. "Sir, the Super--"

"Doyle!" Cowley shouted.

His voice echoed into the silence, but only the blackbird replied.

Of course, Doyle might be in a situation where he dared not answer for fear of giving away his position, but...

"Stay here," Cowley growled at the policeman, and moved slowly out into the open, his gun up, watching every angle, ready to dive flat to the ground at the slightest movement, the smallest sound.

Nothing.

He limped over to the hawthorn bush. It was innocent of gunmen, or anything else.

"Doyle!"

Still no answer.

Elliott came bouncing up to join him, his face grim. "Your people are dead."

"Aye. Except for Doyle, and he's missing. Let's hope he's still on Krivas' trail, but you'd better have your men search the immediate area. It should be safe enough. Krivas has obviously gone." Cowley's voice was dry and calm but he could feel rage quivering inside him, and knew that it was the only emotion he could allow himself to feel over the deaths of McHenry and Jenkins, and that he must not let it surface. Anger was there to be used; he must not let it use him. "What about the girl?" he asked.

"She's been beaten up and raped. We aren't getting much sense out of her at the moment. Hysteria. Not surprising, really. She keeps going on about some people called `Jan' and `Mick' but we haven't found out who they are, yet."

"I'll talk to her," Cowley decided. He glanced up at the ragged tower just visible through the tree to his right. St. Catherine's. He would have to get Elliott to have it checked out. There was still a good chance that Krivas was using it... and if he was, more men would die. Cowley changed his mind. He was not going to risk any more policemen. He'd wait until his own reinforcements got here. And where the hell was Bodie? It occurred to him that if anything had happened to Doyle, Bodie would well and truly learn what the price could be for disobeying standing orders, and he would consider it far too high. So did Cowley. 

 

Prodded by Krivas' gun, Doyle walked on, waiting for some weakness in his opponent, some minute shift of attention, or a stumble on the rough ground, but Krivas was inhumanly efficient. Doyle could not take advantage of errors that Krivas did not make, and he was very conscious that his opponent could handle that .44 Magnum, and that he wanted him dead.

He noticed that Krivas was in a hurry and tried to slow the pace. They were on open ground and Krivas would be vulnerable to a man with a gun. If there had been a man with a gun.

He didn't expect us yet, Doyle thought. We had the advantage. We've lost most of it, but maybe there's a little edge left that we can still use.

They came to a high wall of grime-coated stone and Krivas chivvied him along it, until it bent, turning a corner into a narrow road. As they followed it round, they became aware of a police car parked in front of the large, wrought-iron gates, and the two uniformed constables examining the heavy chain and padlock that secured them.

There was only one thing to do, and Doyle did it, knowing that he was committing suicide. "Look out!" he yelled. "Get down! He's--"

Krivas' arm hooked round his throat, cutting off the words, cutting off his breath. He was dragged back against the wall, his body shielding Krivas, the gun pressed against his head.

Startled, the two policemen turned. It seemed like hours to Doyle before they understood what was happening and took cover behind the patrol car. He watched their retreat in horror at their slowness and astonishment when Krivas made no move to shoot either of them." You!" Krivas yelled. "You two! You hear me. Get into that car and drive away! You have sixty seconds and then I shoot him. And then I shoot you!"

The pressure on Doyle's throat had eased enough to let him gasp a small amount of air into his lungs, but he was still immobilised. He wondered if the two coppers realised what Krivas was doing. It was all a gamble; a gamble that the policemen weren't armed, a gamble that they wouldn't call his bluff. Krivas sidled along the wall, pulling Doyle with him, edging towards the car - and the gates.

"Thirty seconds!"

The bobbies obviously thought that Krivas was getting too close for they scrambled into the car and, a couple of seconds later, the engine spluttered to life.

They aren't armed, Doyle thought in relief. They're going retreat, as per the rule book. Then, to his horror, the door of the car opened again and one of the policemen got out.

No! Doyle could not scream the word aloud but he screamed it silently as the car pulled away, leaving a burly, blue-clad figure standing squarely before the gates.

"Now, listen, old son..." The copper's voice was of the sort that calmed street riots, brought suicides down off the top of tower blocks, and was respected by every yobbo from Aberdeen to Southampton, but Doyle knew that it would not work on Krivas. "Now, look, you know that you're going to end up in the Nick sooner or later, so why not give yourself up now, and do it the easy way. No-one is going to get killed that way, no-one's even going to get hurt. Least of all you. So come on, give me the gun."

Doyle tried to warn the policeman with his expression, with his eyes, to send the telepathic message to the copper that his only chance was to run, as far and as fast as he could go. As usual, the telepathy showed no sign of working.

The policeman took a step forward.

The bellow of the .44 almost deafened Doyle, and he felt the hot wind of the shell on his skin as it roared past. It struck the policeman in the chest.

The copper looked down at himself with a flabbergasted expression, then his knees buckled and he sank slowly to his knees, then toppled sideways to lie still.

Krivas' gun had hardly shifted from its position against Doyle's ear.

The police car jerked backwards, then stalled.

"I told you to go!" Krivas shouted at it.

Then the car engine howled back to life. The vehicle slewed across the road, picking up speed, then howled away in a series of unsteady meanders until it disappeared from sight.

As soon as it had gone, Krivas dragged Doyle to the gates. Making his prisoner stand in the middle of the road with his back to him, Krivas unlocked the gates, one handed, his gun never wavering from its aim on Doyle's back. Then he sent him through into the grounds, snapped the lock shut, and hurried his captive towards the ruined church.

As they walked up the overgrown drive, Doyle saw that his guess was right; the place was an ideal vantage point, an ideal defensive position. From the top of the tower it would be possible to see every square inch of the churchyard and what was left of the church itself. Apart from the tower, only sections of wall and the porch remained. They would provide little cover for an attack and Doyle came to the unhappy conclusion that one man could probably hold off an army.

This has been carefully planned, Doyle thought. No spur-of-the-moment job. Krivas has been working on this for a long time. Cowley was right. It's Bodie Krivas wants to kill - and Krivas is insane.

 

Cowley surveyed the woman huddled in the back of Elliott's car with a great deal of compassion, and the knowledge that he could not afford to be compassionate. She was young, and attractive in a wholesome sort of way, but she was battered, tear-and-bloodstained, and her eyes were wild, irrational.

Not for the first time in the last few hours, Cowley cursed Bodie's absence. He had a surprisingly delicate touch with difficult interrogations, an aptitude for gaining the confidence of the hurt and the frightened.

Well, Cowley wasn't too bad at that himself. Despite her hysteria, he could not be tough with her, or she might crack completely, and she must not think of him primarily as a man. The right line was to be sympathetic, even avuncular, and perhaps a little brusque.

Accordingly, he thickened the Scots burr in his voice until it was almost a parody. "Now, lass, don't cry any more. He's gone and it's over. All we need is your name and we'll call your husband" - the first thing he had looked for had been the wedding ring - "and you can go home and start forgetting. Och, it'll take time but, in the end, you'll forget." Cowley was well aware that this probably wasn't true but it was what the girl needed to hear.

She seemed to see him for the first time. "It... it's not me. Oh God, if he rapes Jan..."

"Who is Jan?"

"Jan. Jan Corrigan. She's - she's one of my form... Hazley Middle School... He's got her and he might- he might..."

"Even if he wants to, it won't happen for a while. We have time to find them first," Cowley stated confidently. "She isn't with him now. He was alone. Where is she?"

"S... St. Catherine's. I've told them and told them but they still go in there..."

"Steady lass." Cowley still made no attempt to touch her, but there was massive comfort in his voice. "St. Catherine's, you say. Where? The church tower?"

"That's... that's where he took them... I think... I didn't see."

"Them?"

"Jan and Mick. Mick Barr. He... he's in my class too. That man... he had him too... Oh Dear God, if he..."

"He won't. Now, give me your name and tell me where I can find your husband. Come on, lass. You've done all you can. What's your name?"

"Sara... Sara Leicester."

At that moment, the police car R/T began its urgent beeping. Elliott came quickly to the car, hesitated, and looked questioningly at Cowley.

Well, the spell had been broken, anyway. Cowley nodded to Elliott, who switched on and gave his call sign."

"Search HQ here, sir. Jackson speaking. We've picked up a call relayed from Hazley nick. One P.C. McIntosh. You'd better talk to him, sir. It's urgent." Jackson sounded upset himself, and Elliott appeared startled by his style of delivery.

"Patch him through," the Super ordered. "Over."

"Wilco. P.C. McIntosh, you're patched to Chief Superintendent Elliott."

The voice that followed made no attempt at correct procedure. It was young and it was shaking with shock and fear. "Sir... he's... he's shot Dick Evans, sir. Ki-killed him in cold blood. He... he..."

Elliott stiffened. His voice was sharp: "Stop babbling, man! Report! Over."

The voice steadied a little. "P.C. McIntosh here, sir. P.C. Evans and I were searching the area in our patrol car—"

"I understood all local patrols had been ordered in to the Search HQ."

"Yes, sir. I know. We were on our way in, sir, but Dick... P.C. Evans, sir, suddenly thought of checking the church. Well, it's not a church really, just a ruin now. Anyhow, P.C. Evans'd seen someone prowling round there a couple days back. We thought it was some of the local kids - there's a whole gang of 'em - Lord knows how they get in, with those walls and gates but—"

Elliott brought McIntosh back into line firmly. "So you went to take a look. What happened then? Over."

"We were looking at the gates. Someone had put a new chain and padlock on... the old ones had been beginning to rust... when a voice yelled a warning. We were pretty strung up, sir. It gave us one hell of a shock. We ducked down behind the car, and the suspect was there, sir, against the wall, that escaped convict, Krivas. He had a gun, sir. Never seen anything so big. And he had a hostage. I think it was the hostage who'd yelled. Anyway, Krivas told us that if we didn't get into the car and drive off he was going to kill the hostage and kill us too, sir. Well, Evans, sir, he... he tried to talk him out of it, sir, and... and he shot him, sir. Killed him, sir, in cold blood..."

"Where the hell are you now?"

"On... on the Ramsden Road, sir. I... drove off. I'm sorry, sir, but it seemed..."

"It was the right thing to do," Cowley said grimly. "Ask him to describe the hostage."

Elliott did so.

"I... I didn't see him too well," McIntosh replied. "I was looking at Krivas, sir. He was youngish, I think. Medium height. Brown curly hair..."

"Doyle," Cowley identified.

"Is he still alive?" Elliott asked McIntosh.

"I think so, sir. Krivas only fired the one shot."

"Why the hell didn't we hear it?" Elliott muttered.

"Traffic noise on Ramsden Road... freak of acoustics..." Cowley replied, but he wasn't really thinking about it. The situation was worsening by the moment, and the only comfort he could find was that Krivas' hostage was not a terrified civilian, but Ray Doyle, who could be trusted to take advantage of any error Krivas might make. Perhaps, with those children in there, Doyle's capture could almost be considered a stroke of good fortune.

Perhaps... but three policemen and two of his agents were dead, a woman had been raped, a still unidentified civilian killed, and two children and another CI5 agent were being held hostage. How many more would die before this was over?

 

"'e's comin' back," Jan hissed across the tower room.

"Ooo?"

"Krivas, idiot!"

"You see ooo 'e shot?"

"No, but there was a coupla fuzz up at the gates. Looked like ol' they-need-a-good-'idin' Evans an' 'is kid sidekick."

"You suppose 'e shot 'im?" Mick sounded pleased at the prospect.

"Don't know. With our luck it was probably the kid sidekick. Krivas 'as got someone with 'im though."

"Anyone we know?"

"Nope. Say, Mick I've got an idea. If we sit on that trap door, Krivas can't get in here, right?"

"Right." Mick's expression was one of pure admiration. He had a strong and abiding respect for Jan's mental powers.

"Then get 'umpin', pal."

 

"Well, is it as beautiful as I said?" Karen demanded.

"Everything's impossibly beautiful from here," Bodie told her, reaching up to brush her cheek with his fingers.

"Clown. Flattery... "

"Will get me everywhere."

"You hope," Karen said primly, sitting up fully and hugging her knees.

Bodie laughed, but did not move. He was too damn comfortable. He simply lay back on the grass and watched the flicker of sunlight and sky through the gently moving leaves.

"We've been lucky with the weather," Karen observed. "The forecast said that some places were going to get heavy storms."

"Ummm."

"You..." Karen leaned over and kissed him "...are a lazy devil."

"I've had a heavy week."

"Too tired?" Teasing now.

"Not that tired."

"I'll bet." Karen relaxed against his chest as his arms closed round her back. "Ummm. A girl could feel safe with you around, Bodie."

"You might be very wrong," he murmured into her hair.

"I _meant_ , with people like that escaped terrorist or murderer or whatever he is around. I wonder if they've caught him yet."

Something professional stirred inside Bodie. He tried to push it aside but it wouldn't go. "What escaped terrorist, murderer or whatever?" he asked.

"Oh, it was on the news. He got away from Hallingrove, or something. Extremely dangerous and all the usual run-for-the-hills stuff."

"Do you remember his name?"

"Something foreign. I do remember that his Christian name was Enrico... I noticed because I didn't think anyone was really called that..."

Bodie's mind made a connection and he sat up abruptly, dislodging Karen. "Think, Karen. What was the name?"

"I told you, something foreign. Began with one of those odd letters like Z or K..."

Bodie gripped her shoulder and shook it slightly. "Think, Karen. You have to remember."

"I told you, I don't - Bodie, you're hurting me!"

"Was it Krivas?"

"Maybe. Perhaps that was it. Something like that. But if you knew all along, why—?"

"Fucking hell!" Bodie was on his feet fast, dragging Karen with him. He charged off in the direction of his car, yelling, "Come on!"

Suddenly realising that she might be left behind in the middle of a wood, miles from anywhere, Karen followed him.

"Bodie! Bodie...!"

At the car, Bodie dived into the driver's seat, switching on the radio as he did so and re-connecting the displaced wires. "This is 3/7. Update me on the situation on Krivas."

A woman's voice answered: "3/7? We've been trying to reach you for hours. One moment, and I'll connect you to Alpha One."

"Later. What about Krivas?"

"He's apparently holed up in a ruined church. St. Catherine's, on Hazley Heath. He's killed... he's killed 8/9 and 2/1 as well as three policemen and he now has three hostages."

"What demands is he making?"

"Not known, 3/7. We're not in communication with him."

"Okay. I'm on my way." Bodie glanced to make sure that Karen was installed behind him, then began a one-handed reverse out of the trees. "Is 4/5 down there?"

There was a long pause.

Bodie grew impatient. "Is this thing dead, or something?"

"No, 3/7. Alpha One is in charge at St. Catherine's. Report to him there."

"Where's 4/5?"

"4/5 is one of Krivas' hostages. The other two are children."

The situation was too bad to merit further swearing. Bodie simply said, "I'll be there in less than an hour. Inform Alpha. Out," and put his foot down to the floor. As the car roared down the lane, he said to Karen, "I'll drop you at the first village."

"Bodie, what are you doing?"

"Dropping you at the next village," he answered. "Then I'm going to finish something I should have finished four years ago."

 

Perhaps the church tower had once had a door but now all it had were the holes that had held the screws for the hinges. Doyle passed through the gap in the wall with Krivas close on his heels, then climbed the stone stairway that led upwards against one wall, its steps broken and slimy.

The stairs ended in a large room covering the width of the tower. It was a single lancet window and a ladder that ran up to a closed trap door in the wooden ceiling.

Krivas gestured with the gun.

Climb.

Doyle climbed, conscious of the unwavering threat of the weapon. Cautiously, he pushed at the trap. It didn't move. He pushed harder. It shifted a little, then fell back, as if there was a weight on top of it, and Doyle had almost dislodged it.

"It's stuck," Doyle told Krivas.

"Open it."

"I can't. There's something on top of it."

"There can't be - those damn brats!" Krivas raised his voice. "You two up there! Move away from the trapdoor or I start shooting through the floor."

 

"Will 'e?" Mick asked.

Jan remembered Marks, remembered Evans. "Yes. Sorry, Mick. I guess it wasn't one of my best ideas. Hump off."

 

Both Doyle and Krivas heard the thump of small bodies on the floorboards as the children moved.

"Open it," Krivas repeated.

Doyle pushed the trap up.

"Be careful, Doyle," Krivas warned. "Keep your hands where I can see them. Now, come down here."

Krivas still wasn't giving him a chance, Doyle realised miserably. Christ, but the ex-mercenary was _good_. He had hoped to try kicking him from above as he came up the ladder or, failing that, to move fast enough up the ladder to make his escape to the top of the tower, but Krivas had thwarted his plans as easily as if he had been reading his mind. Now, he preceded Doyle up the ladder, his gun never moving from its aim on his captive, and the CI5 agent had no choice but to follow him meekly up into the room above.

 

"Wait him out," Elliott suggested. "It's standard procedure."

"Aye, but we're dealing with a psychotic, and we have children to consider. If it suits him, he'll kill them."

"Could you mount an armed assault?"

Cowley sighed. "Why do you think we're here, out of line-of-sight from that tower? Krivas is a first class rifleman - oh, I can think of better but we must presume that he has a rifle up there, and if he has then he can pick off anything that moves within a quarter of a mile. He has planned this very carefully, Elliott. The tower gives him an ideal position to defend himself. We cannot get an assault party over the walls without him realising what is happening - and what chance will the children, and Doyle, have then?"

"So I suppose we get out the loud-hailer and try to talk to him?"

"P.C. Evans tried to talk to him. I don—" Cowley stopped as he saw one of his newly-arrived agents signalling to him from the car and he hurried over to join him, Elliott at his heels.

"Alpha One," Cowley said into the offered mike.

"3/7 has just reported in, Alpha. He has been informed of the situation and is on his way to join you. He estimates that he will be there in less than one hour."

"Thank you. Find out which car he's driving and alert the police roadblocks to let him through. Alpha out." He slammed down the microphone with an air of satisfaction.

Mike Heston, the CI5 agent, looked knowingly at Cowley. "Bodie must have caught a news flash. We wait for him, sir?"

"Aye. We wait."

"Why?" Elliott asked. "What's so special about—?"

"When you have an expert then you are a fool if you don't use him. The man for the job, Elliott. We wait."

 

Doyle regarded the two children with dismay. They looked back at him with suspicion. He wondered why. It must be obvious that he was as much as prisoner as they were, now that Krivas had bound both his wrists and ankles. Of course, it might just be that they were terrified, but they did not look terrified. Anyway, they were a problem. He hoped to God that someone knew they were here, but he doubted it.

His own situation was desperate. Not only was he bound, but Krivas had supplemented the .44 with a rifle; a Remington 7mm Magnum, by the looks of it, equipped with a Moonlighter sight. Doyle suspected that he could handle it as well as he did the .44. Certainly, it looked at home in his hands as he prowled from one circular opening to another, watching all sides of the tower for movement, his face serene. A man who had the situation under complete control, that was how Krivas obviously saw himself. Perhaps it was true.

Doyle decided it was time to test the water. He spoke quietly to the children, "Are you both all right?"

Two sets of eyes, brown and blue-green, regarded him with hostility. Neither child answered.

Doyle tried again: "He hasn't hurt you, has he?"

The girl looked at him with total contempt. "What does it look like?"

It surprised him into an unguarded answer. "It looks like we're in the same boat. What are your names?"

"Who's asking?"

"I'm Ray Doyle. I'm..." Christ! What was the most reassuring thing to say? "I'm... a sort of policeman."

"Not very good at it, are you?" the girl commented.

Definitely hostile. What on Earth had he done to antagonise her? Doyle prided himself on being able to handle kids. "Like I said, we're in the same boat. Come on, I've told you my name. Fair's fair."

The girl considered that. "I'm Jan Corrigan," she said grudgingly. "This 'ere's Mick Barr."

"Well, Jan, Mick, don't worry. They'll get us out of here but it may take a bit of time. We ought to get to know each other better."

"Ain't nuffink to know," Mick said shortly. He then clammed up and, despite all Doyle's efforts, both children remained stubbornly silent.

Time passed far too quickly. Krivas seemed to have limitless energy and patience... Doyle finally abandoned his attempted overtures to the children and left them to whisper between themselves. What the hell was Cowley doing out there? The answer was obvious: waiting, following procedure. So there was only one thing for Doyle himself to do, and that was following the same procedure. Procedure said that he was going to have to try and talk Krivas into giving himself up. He didn't think much of his chances. All the same, there was nothing he could do except try.

"You know you haven't got a chance, Krivas," he opened. We caught you before and we'll do it again, and you know how we'll do it, Krivas? By simply letting you defeat yourself. All the people out there have to do is wait, wait until you drop from exhaustion."

Krivas shrugged. "You'll be dead long before I do, Doyle."

"What good will that do?"

"It will give me a great deal of personal satisfaction. I told you before; I want Bodie to find your body - before I kill him. But I think that you are wrong. They will not try to wait us out. Not with Bodie out there. I have his partner, so he will come to the rescue. He's loyal; I'll give him that."

Sickeningly, Doyle knew that what Krivas said was true. If Bodie had been out there, where he belonged, instead of gallivanting off wherever he had gallivanted off to, then nothing would have stopped him coming in after Doyle - and after Krivas. His peculiar code of honour would allow him to do nothing else.

"Then why not let the kids go, if it's Bodie you're after, and I'm the bait you're using to catch him?"

Krivas grinned. "No. No-one is going to come in hard and fast, using stun grenades or worse, while those kids are in here. If all I had was you, someone might overrule Bodie and decide that you are expendable. After all, you are CI5. But no one is going to risk hurting the children. Least of all Bodie. He was always surrounded by those damn wog brats..."

Doyle had a sudden mental picture, vivid and absurd, of his partner, propped against the wall of a mud hut, sitting in the middle of wide-eyed and admiring black kids and it occurred to him, with painful sharpness, that Krivas probably knew more about Bodie than he did.

Bodie had certainly known more about Krivas.

Think, Doyle admonished himself. This is no time for sentiment or for trying to analyse Bodie. There must be a weak spot in Krivas' argument. Find it.

He said, "All that might be true, if anyone knew the kids were here, but they don't, Krivas. They know you have me, but no-one knows about the children."

"Wrong, Doyle. The woman knows. That's the reason I left her alive, after I'd enjoyed myself with her, of course. Two birds with one stone, as you say, Doyle. She's also a message to your partner. One he won't fail to understand."

Doyle understood it too. He remembers Bodie telling him about the reason to his feud with Krivas... the girl whose face Krivas had blown away with a .44 Magnum. "She was beautiful..." Bodie had said. "I loved her..."

Bodie had known about Krivas.

And I stopped him killing him, Doyle thought. Well, Ray, whichever way you look at it, this is all your fault. The deaths... the girl... oh God, the girl... and these kids, they're your responsibility. You saved Krivas, and this is what happens. Somehow, you've got to retrieve the situation - and do it before anyone else dies.

 

Elliott was feeling more and more like a spare limb. It was not that Cowley's agents were impolite - they simply ignored him. There were nearly twenty of them here now, supplemented by what Elliott suspected were SAS troops, and all of them had taken up position watching the tower. A figure, presumably Krivas, had been seen for an instant inside one of the broken clock-face openings, but not for long enough for anyone to even consider attempting a shot, and that was before Cowley had given orders that the snipers were to hold their fire, whatever the temptation. It was a long shot, and the risk of reprisals too great.

The police had lost control of the situation, Elliott realised, though it galled him to have to admit it. His only role was that of observer - not that anyone seemed to be doing anything else at the moment.

It was then that the Chief Superintendent saw the grey Capri Ghia come barrelling along the road at breakneck speed. Cowley noticed it too, and turned to stand waiting, his face grim, as the car clewed to a halt and its driver catapulted himself from the front seat. He crossed the dozen or so yard to Cowley at a run and skidded to a stop in front of him. A powerful, dark-haired young man, he looked both worried and angry.

"How the hell did Krivas get out?" he demanded of Cowley.

"A combination of a model prisoner attitude and outside help," Cowley snapped back. "Where were _you_?"

"On leave. You know th—"

"But not off duty. No CI5 agent is ever off duty, a fact you know perfectly well, Bodie."

"You sent Doyle up against Krivas!" It was an accusation.

"Who the devil was I supposed to send, 3/7?" Cowley's voice was glacial. "8/9 and 2/1 are dead, and 4/5 is a prisoner because I had to go in against Krivas with what I had available. Then. I take it that you understand what I am saying, 3/7?"

Bodie's face was now expressionless. "Yes, sir."

"Good. We will explore that understanding later. Right now, we have to get those children and Doyle out of there, then take Krivas."

"Your priorities are the same as mine," said Bodie. "Sir."

"They had better be, 3/7. I'll brief you on the situation."

"Yes, sir." Bodie knew that he had got off lightly, but that the reckoning was only postponed. It didn't matter. All that mattered were the people inside those grim black walls.

 

Doyle shifted uncomfortably. The ropes and sticking plaster were beginning to hurt, and his muscles were cramping. He was acutely uncomfortable, and trickling with sweat, not all of it caused by the hot, sticky atmosphere.

Krivas still prowled the tower room, using up nervous energy, and the kids were again whispering together. What Doyle could overhear seemed to be double-talk, a private shorthand, the kind he and Bodie could use so efficiently. He wondered if Cowley had found Bodie yet, and whether he ought to hope for it or not.

I have to do something, Doyle thought. If I don't that bastard is going to kill us all - and whoever Cowley sends in against him. Lord, I hope he does know about the kids. I'm expendable, like Krivas says, but they aren't.

Hell.

Doyle again considered the small room, considered the open clock-face, circles in the stone walls some five feet in diameter, the glass smashed away. Holes, now. Open to the sky. And a long way to the ground. A fall would kill.

A fall.

It might just be managed, but he was going to need more luck than he had ever needed before in his life.

Carefully, very, very carefully and slowly, moving only when Krivas' back was turned to him, Doyle began to inch his way towards the eastern hole.

 

Bodie looked up at the black tower, almost lost now against the gathering cloud. "It's me he's after," he agreed. "If nothing else, the girl told us that. She was a message to me. The reason Krivas and I are... enemies... is because of something very similar he did to a girl in Africa. Only, he killed her... afterwards. At the time, I... I was in love with her." He shook himself. "Krivas is confident now. He thinks he holds all the aces... the kids... Doyle... He hasn't even bothered to demand that I come, because he knows damned well that I will."

"And he intends to kill you, just as he will kill his hostages, whether you go in there or not, Bodie."

"I know that. It makes no real difference, does it?"

"I may not," Cowley said dryly, "consider four more deaths a good exchange for three."

"What you consider doesn't matter." Bodie still hadn't looked at him, and his voice held a dreamy note.

Cowley's voice became a growl of anger: "Read the small print on your contract, 3/7."

Bodie shook his head slightly. "I heard what you once said to Ray on that subject, but you don't own me. There are a lot of unpleasant things you can do to me if I don't obey you, but there's no way you can make me do as you say." He turned to face Cowley. "That's a lesson I learned a long time ago, sir, and I think you knew it a long time before I did. You also know that if I can get just one of those kids out of there, it'll be worth the risk."

"Aye, but can you?"

"I don't know. All we both know is that I have to try. Sir."

Cowley nodded, once. He seemed oddly satisfied. "Whatever you need, just ask for it."

Bodie chuckled. "Find me one of the local kids. One who hangs out with that pair in the tower." Then, in response to Cowley's questioning look. "Well, by all accounts, they know a way in there, don't they? A way no-one has been able to block?"

 

Doyle was now a great deal nearer the eastern clock-face, thought not near enough to even think of making his move. It had been a long, slow process, and, once or twice, he had thought that Krivas was looking in his direction with growing suspicion.

Maybe it was because he had been too quiet.

"No-one's coming, Krivas," he said now. "Why don't you try and strike a bargain with Cowley? The way you've got things set up here, you'll never escape alive."

"They won't hand Bodie over to me to kill him," Krivas replied, not turning his attention from the view outside. "Not unless I agree to release you and the children, perhaps not even then, and if I do release any of you I lose my bargaining power, right? So we'll wait for Bodie, and I'll kill him, and then I'll still have the children to use to bargain my way out of here."

Doyle did not ask what Krivas meant to do with him. That was already clear.

"Bodie isn't coming," he said.

"He's there. Outside. I can feel him."

"Hey, Mister!" Mick broke in suddenly, shattering the long silence on his part and Jan's. "Mister, look, what 'ave we done, huh? Please let us go. We'll tell the geezer you want that you're waitin' for 'im, and we won't let on yer goin' t' kill 'im, 'onest."

Krivas turned on him. "Shut up!"

Jan began to sniffle. "I wanna go 'ome. I want me mum... we ain't done nuffink..."

"Stop snivellin'," Mick snapped. Then, to Krivas, "Wimmin is worsen useless..."

Jan began to cry in earnest, piercing wails that twisted Doyle's nerves in anguished sympathy, but he could move while the children were distracting Krivas and did so, just a little nearer that tempting opening.

"Stop that!" Krivas ordered. He strode across the floor, bent over Jan, and slapped her face. Jan sobbed all the harder."Me han's 'urt... an' I wan' me Mum... an' I wanna go 'ome..."

Krivas started to drag her to her feet, but she came up much faster than he had anticipated, her head driving into his stomach, sending him staggering backwards. At the same time, Mick hurled himself forwards, his teeth fastening on Krivas' gun hand, his bound hands clawing at the rifle.

It didn't work. It could never have worked, though Doyle was stunned by the intelligence and courage its attempt indicated. Regaining his balance, Krivas shook Mick away, then clubbed at the fallen boy with his rifle butt.

Which left Doyle with no choice of action. He rolled frantically across the floor, ending up on his back in front of Krivas. He kicked out with his bound legs, sweeping the other man's feet away and sending him toppling towards the clock-face hole.

Krivas stumbled, caught at the rim, swung for a moment towards the drop, then hauled himself back to safety.

His face black with fury, he pounced on the helpless Doyle. 

 

"This 'ere's young Ryan Cassidy," the constable said, with an air of distaste. "Another o' them young 'ooligans in Corrigan's gang. You said you wanted to speak to 'im." He plainly thought that Cowley must be crazy, but didn't dare say so.

"Yes, thank you," the CI5 chief replied. "Come along, son." The boy came with ill-grace. He was a tall, sturdy, red-haired, freckle-faced lad, who wore a mulish look that Cowley thought might hide apprehension.

"Dunno watcha wan' wi' me," he muttered. "I ain't done nuffink."

"We think you can help us," said Cowley.

"Fuzz ain't never done nuffink t' 'elp me."

We're not going to get anything out of him, Cowley thought. Not quickly, anyway.

"Bodie," he said aloud, as they turned around the back of the truck. "This is Ryan Cassidy."

Bodie swung to his feet, picking up his carbine as he did so. He had changed into combat gear and he looked at home in it; dangerous, competent, and very tough.

He surveyed Ryan Cassidy. The boy stared defiantly back, but his expression had changed slightly, and Cowley thought that there was now a certain amount of respect in his look.

"Cassidy," said Bodie heavily. "So you're the one with the local knowledge."

"I dunno watcha mean."

"You know exactly what I mean," Bodie replied, his tones clipped and urgent. "I don't have any time to play games, Cassidy, and neither do you. We have at least one thing in common - friends in that tower who may never come out alive. I don't know about you, but I intend to do all I can to save them. They're up in that church tower with a madman who has far too many weapons for comfort. I'm going to go in and get them out, but, if I'm going to succeed, I need the best available help. I'm told that's you."

Cassidy thought about this. Obviously, he was both impressed and flattered, but he was also unsure. "What is it you wanta know?"

"How to get into that tower without anyone seeing me."

"What makes you think I can tell you that?"

Bodie grinned. "I don't think, I know. When I was your age I knew how to get into every building site, warehouse and deserted building within five miles of home. Besides, you've been seen in there, even if you have all the cops and teachers fooled as to how you do it."

Still the boy hesitated. "I'd like t' be able t' 'elp you, sir but... well... I promised Jan never to tell. Blood oath, sir."

"I know how you feel," Bodie said solemnly, "but it's important to know when to break an oath and when to keep it. Do you really think Jan meant it to apply to something like this?"

"No... but..."

"Suppose I give you my word that if you tell me and Mr. Cowley here, it will never go any further... and I mean not to your parents, teachers, the police, or anyone else?"

"You promise?"

"I told you; my word on it."

"What about 'im?"

"He promises too." Bodie eyed Cowley, one eyebrow up. "Don't you, sir?"

Cowley shook himself out of his fascinated stare. "Aye. I promise."

"So," said Bodie, with a wink in Cowley's direction, "let's have the layout."

"Wait a minute. You promise that I get immunity from the fuzz?"

"You get immunity," Bodie agreed readily, as Cowley wondered what, exactly, he was going to tell Elliott about this interview.

"I'll show y' then."

"Sorry. This is strictly a solo operation."

Cassidy looked only slightly disappointed. He had been almost certain that he wasn't going to be that lucky anyway. "Okay. I hope you don' live t' regret it." He had plainly seen far too many old movies. "This is the layout..."

 

The first thing he realised was that he was cold. Damn. The quilt must have fallen off the bed while he slept. He was uncomfortable too. Cramped.

He tried to move, to stretch, and found that he could not, but the attempt brought pain, and memory.

Doyle opened his eyes.

The first thing he saw was the two children, Jan and Mick, bound back to back a short distance away.

"You all right, Mister?" It was Jan who spoke, and she sounded serious.

"Yeah. I'm okay." Doyle struggled into a sitting position, his back against the cold stone wall. He did not feel anything like `okay'.

"I'm sorry, Mister."

"For what?"

"For getting you beaten up..."

"An' for muckin' up yer plan t' kill _'im_." Mick spoke the last word with concentrated hatred, glaring at Krivas.

The mercenary was crouched by one of the holes, looking down into the graveyard below, the rifle steady in his hands, the freshening wind whipping at his hair and clothes.

It was cold, Doyle realised, and the sky was black with cloud. He looked back to the children, the respect for the definite now. "You tried too," he said, "but next time you try something like that, let me in on it, right?"

"Guess we ought to have done that in the first place," Jan admitted. "You ain't the sort of policeman we're used to, Mister. We're sorry."

"I only said that I was a `sort' of policeman," Doyle pointed out, smiling at her, "and if we're going to be friends, how about calling me Ray?"

"Okay," Mick said, quite calmly, but parodying Charles Bronson, "but we may not 'ave much time fer that. I don' think we're gonna get outa this so easy."

"We will." Doyle wished that he was certain of that. Mick, of course, did not really understand the threat of death that was so close now. His was the world where the cavalry always came over the hill...

Well, Doyle wasn't expecting to hear any bugle calls at all.

 

Bodie looked up at the ebony sky with satisfaction, feeling the first drops of rain sting his face. "This is the first break we've had. Maybe our luck's beginning to turn."

"Krivas will expect an attack under cover of the weather."

"It's still a break," Bodie insisted. He looked down into the stone-lined drain that Cassidy had revealed, hidden under a large slab about 20 feet outside the wall. "I'd better get moving."

"Right... and 3/7, we'll talk over the little matter of whether or not you have to obey my orders when you get back."

Bodie grinned wryly. "I'll look forward to it." He gripped Cowley's outstretched hand and vanished down into the hole.

Cowley stared after him for a long time. "Good luck, son," he said, at length. "God knows, you'll need it."

 

Bodie emerged from the ditch into pouring rain. He flattened in the grass, peering through the bottom of the skimpy hedge into the overgrown churchyard. Visibility was now down to maybe 40 yards, and he could see a faint artificial light, probably that of an electric torch, gleaming from the top of the tower.

Well, this was the dangerous bit. He was going to have to go through the churchyard to reach the entrance of the crypt. There was simply no other way.

He took out his radio and tried to contact Cowley but there was only a crackle of static, so he put it away and pulled his carbine from his shoulder. He wondered again if he had been right to abandon his favourite Uzi, but the smg was simply too indiscriminate a weapon to use with innocent lives on the line. The Ruger Mini 14 was light and accurate - and if he did get a chance of a long shot at Krivas he would be able to take it. If. Some hope...

The sky fractured, lightning glowing in the crack. Even as it faded, Bodie leaped to his feet and sprinted into the churchyard, dodging from gravestone to gravestone, his feet sliding and slipping on the wet grass.

 

The unexpected flash blinded everyone in the tower room for an instant then, in the space between the light and the thunder, Krivas' rifle cracked out, in unison with his cry of triumph.

 

The bullet thudded into earth only a foot from Bodie. He took a flying leap forward, fell, rolled, and suddenly found himself face to face with the truncated wall of the church. The pointed top of an archway sprang from the grass at his feet, as if the earth had flooded it. At once, Bodie wriggled through the opening that remained, and found himself falling.

He relaxed into a parachutist's landing position but hit hard stone before he attained it. He could not have fallen more than about five feet and, though momentarily shaken, he was unhurt, and he quickly picked himself up. This crypt would provide him with a safe route into the church and to the bottom of the tower. After that, it would all depend on Krivas.

 

Krivas waited at the western face-hole, his rifle still at the ready, unheeding of the wind that howled through the dilapidated room, scattering rain on the rotting floor. He had been unmoving for a long time, staring out over a Gothic landscape starkly illuminated by lightning. He had not fired again.

Had there been anyone there in the first place? Doyle asked himself. If what Krivas had been shooting at had been human then it had not fired back. Had Krivas hit it? Bodie... if it had been Bodie...

Hell, Bodie was off somewhere with whatever-her-name-was. Enjoying himself. Doyle hoped it was raining there too.

Thunder rattled the tower, drowning even thought in its bellow.

This is like something out of a Hammer horror movie, Doyle told himself. A bad one. Any minute now, Dracula's going to come up through that trap door...

 

Trap door.

Bodie stared up at it.

Dangerous. He was sure that Krivas was in the room above, and probably Doyle and the children too, but what was all important was their position within it.

If Krivas was still watching the churchyard, ready to shoot anything that moved, then his back would be turned to the trap.

Yeah, possibly. _If_. And if the trap will open quickly and silently enough. Enough ifs, Bodie told himself. You won't find out standing here thinking about it.

Exchanging the carbine for his handgun, Bodie climbed the ladder and put his left hand up to the trap door to cautiously test it. The hinges were rusted and, though they had recently been oiled, Bodie knew that he could not trust them. Still, there did not seem to be anything on top of the trap.

Lightning flashed outside the room's one small window.

Bodie counted it down. Five seconds passed before the thunderclap.

Wait, he told himself. Be sure.

Another flash. Another slow count. Just under five seconds this time. Perhaps the storm was moving closer.

Time to take a risk.

This, Bodie said to himself, is where I make my grand entrance.

He waited.

Damn it, where had that storm gone when he needed it? Who do you pray to for lightning? Thor? Zeus? Anyone?

Even through the lancet window, the flash was blinding.

One... two... three... four... five...With the thunder landsliding round the tower, so that it almost seemed to be collapsing about him, Bodie slammed the trap door upwards and kept going up after it, his finger taut on the trigger. . .

Krivas was crouching before a great round hole in the side of the tower, his back to Bodie. Doyle was lying on the floor to the right, trussed up all ready for serving, his eyes wide and terrified at first, then with his face breaking into a wide grin as he recognised the new arrival. Bodie couldn't see the children.

"If you're wondering who is walking over your grave, Krivas," Bodie drawled, "here I am. Don't..." His voice cooled to glacial menace as Krivas made to turn.

"Drop the gun. _Outside_ the tower, Krivas. That's fine. You're learning how to follow orders, I see. Prison teach you that?"

Krivas began to swear vividly.

"Not in front of the children," Bodie reproved him, climbing the rest of the way out of the trap, his gun never moving from Krivas, but a quick glance taking in the two excited-looking youngsters roped together to the rear of the room.

Doyle let out a breath he had been holding forever. "My God, Bodie... and I was expecting Christopher Lee."

Bodie frowned. "You all right, Ray?" he asked, not taking his eyes off Krivas.

"Maybe not. I can't remember being this glad to see your ugly mug before."

"Takes time to appreciate my natural charm, particularly for someone with a head as thick as yours, sunshine." Panther-quiet, Bodie made his way across the uneven floorboards. The gun that was still centred unerringly on Krivas' chest wasn't Bodie's more usual Browning, Doyle noticed, but the .41 Smith & Wesson that they had been experimenting with recently. Bodie wasn't taking any chances.

"First the knife, Krivas. Oh, gently. Remember, you only have to give me an excuse and this gun is going to go off accidentally. Drop it out of the window. Thank you. Now, turn and face the wall. Spread out. You know the position." Bodie had noticed the .44 tucked into Krivas' belt and felt disinclined to let him touch it. Krivas might even have been able to take on Doyle with a handgun, particularly with that appalling cannon of his.

Krivas rose, his face a mask of hate, but he turned obediently and—

Incandescent light flooded the tower room and the crash that followed it blasted into them like the shock wave from an explosion as the lightning bolt struck the church tower. Even before the noise of thunder began to fade, it was followed by the crash of falling masonry as the tower crumpled. Doyle, to one side of the main cascade of stone, saw Bodie fling himself towards the children as the floor, already unsafe, cracked and splintered and collapsed.

Amid the dust and wreckage, Doyle caught a glimpse of Krivas deliberately dropping through the hole torn in the floorboards, then all was darkness.

Finally, too, there was silence.

"Ray?" That was Bodie's voice, sharply anxious.

Doyle coughed. "'m all right."

He could hear Bodie talking softly to the children, his voice very normal and reassuring. "Just one moment and we'll get rid of these ropes..."

A sheet of lightning lit the room, giving them all a frightening view of the large hole in the floor where the trap door and ladder had been, and then there was darkness again. Doyle had seen Bodie over with the children, but there was no sign of Krivas below. The hand lamp had gone, but there was soon light at the other side of the room as Bodie unclipped a powerful torch from his belt. It helped to supplement the intermittent illumination of the continuing lightning.

"Bet you've never seen a storm like this before," Bodie was saying, conversationally.

"Have you?" Jan's voice asked.

"Oh, yeah. This storm's nothing compared with the ones they have in Africa. You know, sometimes the lightning goes on so continuously that no-one bothers to switch on the lights for nearly three months of the year. Of course, talking isn't so easy. You get a sore throat from yelling over the thunder. Do a roaring trade in black market throat lozenges."

"Really?" Mick asked breathlessly.

"He's just kiddin'..." but Jan sounded doubtful and just a little impressed.

"No, s'all true. Saves a fortune in electricity, those storms. There. Don't move yet."

"You really bin to Africa?" Mick demanded.

"Of course."

"Did y'see any lions?" Jan question eagerly.

"Remind me to tell you about the time a lion went to sleep on the bonnet of our Landrover."

"Really?"

"Yeah. The engine had packed in and we couldn't get out to fix it, not with the new mascot up front, so we had to sit there for hours until it decided to go for lunch. Now, stay here, the pair of you. I think Ray's getting restless, being all tied up at the moment."

Doyle suppressed a suitable retort, thankful for the giggles he could hear in the corner. Then the light began to move and cautious footsteps behind it edged towards him. Soon Bodie was at his side, slicing away the ropes and pulling off the sticking plaster. Doyle winced as it caught the hairs on his arms.

"Are you really all right?" Bodie's question was too low pitched for the children to hear.

"Just stiff... and Krivas used me in lieu of a punchbag," Doyle replied, beginning to rub his cramped muscles. "I can manage."

"Good. Here, you'll feel better with this in your hands."

As his fingers closed lovingly about the butt of the big handgun, Doyle said, "Bodie, I think I love you."

"Bet you say that to all the girls." Bodie moved to the edge of the hole, shining the torch beam down into it to examine the floor below. "I think this hole goes right to the ground, and the ladder's matchwood, but the stone stairs seem to be intact, and there's a good bit of floor still there. I'm going to drop down onto it."

Doyle gave a small, unseen, nod of understanding. "Any sign of Krivas?"

"No - but we haven't seen the last of him."

Doyle put a hand to the wall and tried to rise to his feet, only to fall back again, cursing the weakness of his legs.

"Give it time," Bodie advised. "Mick. Jan. Listen to me. I want [you] to make your way over to join Ray. No, one at a time. First you, Jan. I'll shine the light where I want you to tread. Just keep as close to the wall as you can."

"Bodie..." Doyle protested.

"That floor may not be safe but they weigh about a quarter of what we do. That's it, Jan. Great. Now, stay where you are. The floor's solid there. Okay, Mick, now you. That's the way. Good lad. Sure you don't want a recommendation to the commandos?"

"I do," Jan piped up.

"They don' 'ave female commandos, dope," Mick corrected loftily.

"Well, I'll be the first one, so there!"

"That wouldn't surprise me at all," Doyle commented, with feeling.

"Are you a commando, sir?" Jan asked Bodie.

"The name's Bodie - and no, but I used to be with the SAS."

" _Cor_!"

"But now he's just a sort of policeman like the rest of us," Doyle said, feeling rather annoyed at the easy way the kids had accepted Bodie after all the trouble he had winning their trust.

Bodie just grinned then, quite suddenly, he was over the edge of the hole. There was a thud, then his voice came floating upwards. "Floor's not too safe but the stairs are intact. Pass the kids down to me, Ray."

It was not that easy. There was still very little light from outside and, despite Bodie's wedging the torch so that it shone upwards at the hole in the floor, both of them found it difficult to see adequately. Reasoning that Jan was lighter and bolder than Mick, Doyle called her over, took her by the arms and told her to hang on to his own, then lowered her over the drop, gradually sliding down until he lay full length on the floor. Even then, Jan's feet were well above Bodie's head.

"Let her go," came the order from below.

"No!" Jan gasped, really frightened for the first time, clinging frantically to Doyle, whose muscles were already protesting under the strain.

"I'll catch you, Jan." Bodie's voice was rich with confidence and reassurance. "Ray, let her go."

Doyle obeyed. Jan screeched and clutched wildly at Doyle, but she did not have the strength to hold on and she fell, Bodie fielding her neatly.

"Got you," he said. Then, as she clung to him and sobbed, "Shhh. It's all right, love. You know Ray and me'll look after you. Shhh. Let's get Mick down now." He put her to one side, on the safety of the stone steps.

The task was easier with Mick, who was determined to prove himself braver than Jan. Then, with both of them safe on the stairs, Doyle lowered himself over the edge. His arm muscles were cramping and he felt weak and infirm, while the edge of the broken floor jabbed splinters into his hands, but he wasn't admitting weakness to anyone. Least of all to Bodie.

As he dropped, hands caught and steadied him but, on his impact with the floor, the weakened and rotting wood groaned ominously. There was a sharp cracking sound, and Doyle found himself dragged unceremoniously sideways, onto the stairs.

There was no sound in the shadows except their own breathing. Doyle could feel the small bodies of the children trembling against him. Then Bodie said cheerfully, "Anyone want some chocolate? Not you, Ray. From the way that floor went out, you've got to lose some weight."

What Doyle wanted to do was grab the children and run, but he bit back his angry retort. Bodie knew what he was doing, as was proved by Jan's half-questioning, "Chocolate?"

"Sure. It's standard army tactics. You've got to keep your energy level up," Bodie went on glibly. There was the rustle of paper and the sound of a snapping chocolate bar. "Here. I'm going to reconnoitre. Ray'll look after you."

Before anyone could protest, he had retrieved his torch and was gone down the steps.

Shaking his head to himself, Ray sat down on the stairs with the children leaning against him. They had both stopped trembling and were engaged in devouring the chocolate.

God, kids were resilient. Doyle felt as if he had been twenty rounds with Macklin. He knew that he was in no state to face Krivas and guessed that Bodie suspected it. His partner almost certainly planned to go after Krivas by himself...

No way, Bodie. This is as much my fight as yours. That man, the deaths he's caused, they're my responsibility now. You've done more than enough, mate.

"I like Bodie," Jan announced suddenly.

Typical female reaction! Doyle thought in disgust.

"So do I, love. Some of the time." The rest of the time, I feel like killing him, he added mentally.

"You and Bodie'll get Krivas, won't you, Ray?" Mick asked.

"Yes." I hope.

"And then you'll kill 'im?" Jan's voice was decidedly bloodthirsty.

Well? Doyle asked himself. Will we?

"That depends on whether he tries to kill us," said Bodie's voice from below. "It seems clear at the bottom of the tower, Ray."

"Come on, kids." Doyle rose painfully to his feel and shepherded the children down the steps. "Where's Krivas, Bodie?"

"Gone to ground somewhere outside," Bodie said grimly. "No doubt waiting for us to try and get away."

"He still has that Magnum," Doyle pointed out.

"And he's damn good with it."

Doyle digested that. "Any ideas?"

Bodie turned to the children. "Jan, Mick, you know the way out through the crypt, the graveyard and the drain under the wall?"

"Know it? We mapped it out!" Jan was outraged.

"Well, Krivas doesn't - though he must suspect I came in some way he doesn't know about. Also, he saw me in the graveyard so he'll be watching that."

"Who told you about the drain anyway?" Mick demanded.

"I have my methods, Watson. Right, Krivas will be watching the graveyard, so I'll have to distract him. Meanwhile, I want you two to show Ray the way down into the crypt. It's very important that you stay with him and do exactly what he says - and above all, keep your heads down."

"You're going to distract him?" Doyle asked sharply.

"Yeah. When the shooting starts, it should be safe for the kids to show you the drain." His eyes met Doyle's with quiet significance.

No protests, Doyle told himself. He's right. Only Jan and Mick are important. One of us has to go with them, and Bodie's better equipped to tackle Krivas right now.

"Okay," Doyle said. "I'll be back."

Bodie thumped his shoulder, pushed the torch into his hand, then glided away along the wall, the Ruger held casually in one hand, quickly disappearing into the shadows.

"Okay, Jan, Mick, let's go."

"This way." Jan dived round a buttress and down a short flight of steps, half-blocked by rubble and ending in wet earth. Undeterred, Jan pulled away a piece of mud-stained sacking to reveal a black slit of an opening into which she unhesitatingly wriggled.

"Careful," she called up from what appeared to be the bowels of the earth. "There's a bit of a drop."

It was a tight squeeze for Doyle, who reflected that Bodie must have had problems coming in, but he made it, and Mick followed him. Switching on the torch, he hurried the children through the dank, smelly stone chamber wondering, as he did so, how Bodie was faring.

 

Distract Krivas.

Oh great, Bodie thought, wishing he knew just where Krivas was. You and your big mouth, Bodie.

It was still raining and it occurred to him that Ray and the kids were going to get very wet in that drain.

Better wet than dead.

He wanted to laugh, even thought he knew it was a godawful joke, for euphoria was raging through him. He had done it. He had snatched Ray and the kids from Krivas' bloodstained hands and now he was going to see them safe, then he was going to put that maniac out of circulation once and for all.

Grimly, Bodie crushed down his elation. He knew the danger; relax now and his feelings might cost him his own life.

Careful, he told himself. Now, if I was Krivas, where would I be?

Well, I'd want all round vision, so I'd want to be high up, and I'd want to be able to see the graveyard without being seen. So on the bank, probably. Or up a tree. Or both. That big oak...

If he's up there, maybe the lightning'll do the job for me - don't count on that. Don't even think about it. Who... whatever answered my last request for lightning was rather too enthusiastic. . .

Coming to a gap in the fallen wall of the church, Bodie flattened himself against the wet stone and peered cautiously into the graveyard.

Nothing. Which was to be expected. It meant Krivas was waiting for him to come out into the open. That.44 was a long-range weapon...

Damn the rain. And damn the heavy leaves on that oak.

All right, said Bodie to himself. Let's assume that Krivas is in the oak. It's definitely the best place to be. Sacrificial goat time, Bodie.

He mentally measured the distance from the wall to a tilted Victorian monument, an appallingly ugly and obese child held in custody by two smug-looking angels. It was perhaps seven yards away and, more importantly, it was not on a line of sight from the oak to the crypt exit.

_Go!_

Bodie took two slow, tempting steps out into the open, then catapulted himself forward towards the monument.

He heard the crack of a gun and the whang of a shell striking stone. A second shot took a bite out of one of the angels' right wing, and Bodie finally rolled into cover.

In the oak all right.

Great.

Bodie eased himself up and poked the carbine between the child and the left-hand angel, then fired at the oak.

No reaction.

Bodie guessed that Krivas would be climbing down the far side of the tree trunk and moving into the bank of shrubbery, which provided cover.

Time to take to that himself.

With another shot at the oak for luck, though he was sure that Ray would have the kids well clear by now, and that Krivas was in the undergrowth and already stalking him, Bodie scurried to his right, into a patch of huge and ferocious brambles crawling over a pile of masonry. Once round the far side of that he could easily slide into the mixture of shrub and bracken on the bank. Then there would be just him and Krivas. As it should be.

 

A stiff climb brought Doyle and the children to the low arched exit into the graveyard, but there he held Jan and Mick back, despite their whispered protests, and waited.

"Krivas knows that Bodie came from this direction on his way in," he explained. "So this is where he'll be watching. We have to wait for Bodie's diversion. Then we run. Keep down and behind the gravestones as much as possible, and stay close to me. Jan, where's this drain Bodie was talking about?"

"See that old gatepost? Well, it's on the right of that, just next to the tree stump smothered in bindweed."

"Okay, love. So that's where we go."

Thunder was growling again though much further away now, and the sky was starting to lighten, which made Doyle uneasy. The more light there was the easier it would be for Krivas to stop them.

Still, it was evening-dim, and the rain was still drumming down.

"Me Mum's gonna kill me," Mick said glumly. "These're me best shoes."

"That's nothing to what mine's going to do. I was supposed to be at the dentist's two hours ago."

"Ray, are y' any at explaining to other people's Mums—?"

Mick's words stopped as Doyle's fingers tightened on his arm, responding to the crack of shots, away towards the tower.

"Go!" Doyle snarled.

They went, racing like young deer over the rough ground. Gun in hand, Doyle followed, eyes and ears desperately alert for any sign of Krivas.

That was Bodie's carbine he could hear now. He was still alive, then.

Jan disappeared in front of him like a rabbit down a burrow, Mick following her. Instants later, the ground dropped away from Doyle and he slid down a mud bank to end up calf-deep in water.

Mick's voice was raised in anguish: "Mum'll _slaughter_ me."

They were standing in a narrow channel, cut into the earth, inadequately edged with stone, and overhung with vegetation.

"Where does this come out?" Doyle asked.

"It goes through a sort of tunnel under the walls," Jan explained. "It was all blocked up until the gang cleared it out."

"Can you and Mick find your way out by yourselves?"

"Can _we_?" Outrage.

"All right. Just keep down. You'll go straight out? Promise me. Jan? Mick? Promise?"

Mick looked mutinous, but the urgency in Doyle's voice reached Jan. "I promise, Ray. Cross me heart an' 'ope to die," she said meekly, then nudged Mick with her elbow. "Go on, Fish Face, promise - or I'll tell Cass what 'appened to that guinea pig."

"I promise," Mick said.

Doyle was glad. He didn't want to hear what had happened to the guinea pig, either.

"You goin' back t'help Bodie?" Jan asked.

"Yeah. Listen, Jan. You an' Mick get out of here and find George Cowley, right? He's bossin' the operation. Sandy-haired, middle-aged bloke wearing brown tweeds. Tell him that Krivas is loose with a gun, right? And that Bodie and me are going after him. Tell him to wait until we call in, but if we're not out in one hour he'd better come in anyway. With the artillery. Got that? Right. Off you go."

Jan peered at him from under her fringe for a long moment, and then gravely offered him her hand. "Thank you, sir," she said, the change in address and accent telling him that this was politeness drilled into her by her mother, then, suddenly, she flung her arms around his neck, kissed him, and spun round to splash off down the drain.

"Wimmin," said Mick, in disgust, and stumped off after her.

Doyle watched them go with affection and amusement, but the crack of the .44, back at the church, reminded him of unfinished business.

There was no answering shot.

Alarmed, Doyle scrambled up the bank and back into the churchyard, the S&W in his fist. Crouching beside the tree stump, he looked about him, but there was nothing in sight and the silence was absolute.

 

Bodie lay flat on his stomach, totally hidden by the long grass, and reviewed his situation.

This double-stalk was dangerous and, with Ray and the kids presumably out of danger, it was no longer strictly necessary. He could follow them out and simply wait for Krivas to give himself up.

Like hell.

He could try the R/T again and tell Cowley what was happening or call up reinforcements, but the storm was still rumbling and the interference was probably too great for that...

Who are you kidding, Bodie? he asked himself. Krivas is mine. I'm not giving him up now.

He peered between the grass stalks and down the bank towards the base of the church tower. The last time Krivas had revealed his position, he had been away to Bodie's left, when he had taken a pot shot at a perfectly innocent something in a laurel bush that had the gall to shake its leaves a little too hard. Bodie had been in the wrong position to return fire effectively but he knew that, sooner or later, Krivas would make his way down to that laurel bush to see what he had bagged.

It was time to be moving himself, Bodie decided.

The grass remained still as he slid away into the bracken and towards the church. Africa had been full of many different types of hunter, and Bodie had learned from them all. Now, he drifted down towards the ruined building, every step surefooted and totally silent on the wet and slippery ground. He was soaked through, but he hardly noticed the rain. If he had thought about it at all, he would have known that this was what he had been born to do but, as it was, every atom of his being was concentrated on moving silently, on staying alive, on finding his prey...

There was the slightest of rustlings, a tiny sound nearly hidden by the rain, the wind, and the far-off thunder, but Bodie heard it - and froze. It had been down the slope a little and to his left.

There was no further sound.

Bodie waited with a patience Doyle would have found difficult to believe, if he had witnessed it.

The sound came again, further down the slope.

Bodie grinned to himself. You're out of practice, Krivas, he told his quarry silently. Prison's take your edge.

He ghosted his way down the bank towards the church.

 

Doyle halted. There was an upright gravestone in front of him and another at his back, adequate cover for the meat in a stone sandwich.

What the hell was going on here? The wrecked tower loomed ahead of him, its top jagged against the clouds. Rain hissed down about him, waves of wind flattening the grass. There was no sign of life.

Doyle waited, the rain tickling as it dripped down the back of his neck. His jeans and jacket were soaked through and the wind was knifing into him.

Just where were Bodie and Krivas?

Carefully, Doyle reasoned it out. If Bodie had killed or captured Krivas then he would be here now, waiting for him, but if Krivas had killed Bodie - he did not think there was any chance that Krivas would even consider taking Bodie captive - then Krivas would be stalking Doyle himself. The other possibility was that both Bodie and Krivas were still alive and stalking each other.

He'd better hope for that, then.

Well, Bodie had the carbine, which Krivas did not. Though the .44 had range it couldn't match the Ruger for accuracy. Not in Bodie's hands.

Wait. What had happened to the rifle and the knife that Bodie had made Krivas drop from the tower? That Remington could change the odds drastically in Krivas' favour... if it hadn't been smashed by the fall.

He looked upwards, trying to gauge where it might have landed. The rain stung his eyes and he looked down again. Under the tower. Near the pile of fallen rubble. He had better go and find it before Krivas did.

He moved forward cautiously, using all the cover he could find, flitting from gravestone to gravestone like a corpse-hunting ghoul, feeling strangely foolish in the total silence.

 

Movement in the graveyard.

Bodie levelled his Ruger in a single, swift motion, then relaxed slightly as he recognised Doyle. Good. That doubled the odds against Krivas. All the same, Ray was too exposed...

Bodie slid swiftly towards Doyle, within the shadow of the church wall.

 

Doyle found the Remington halfway down the pile of rubble. The stock was smashed and the sight twisted. Doyle was willing to bet that it was useless. It would probably explode in the hands of anyone who tried to fire it... if it would fire at all.

There did not, however, seem to be any sign of the knife.

 

Bodie, still hidden in the shadow, was less than 20 feet from Doyle when he saw Krivas surface over the top of the heap of rubble behind his partner, the .44 in his fist.

With a rifleman's instinct he knew that in that light and at that angle he almost certainly would not be able to shoot Krivas without hitting Doyle, and the idea did no more than flicker through the fringes of his mind, even as he shouted, "Ray! Behind you!" and flung himself forward.

Doyle started to turn, gun coming up, but his movements were slow compared with his normal lithe speed. Bodie's yell and sudden appearance did not distract Krivas and, even as Doyle competed his turn, the .44 bellowed.

— Bodie knew that Krivas could not miss at that range—

Doyle jerked, his head snapping backwards, then he crumpled to the ground.

— Memories: jungles and deserts and backstreets; bodies falling with just that boneless, jerky... unliving... effect. The unwelcome images charged through Bodie's mind as he drove past Doyle and straight for Krivas.

— And, in the corner of his eye, saw scarlet blossom in the red-brown curls. Colour of death. Ray was dead—

White rage gripped Bodie, burning away reason.

He reached Krivas before the other man could change aim, throwing the Ruger aside as he bowled the mercenary to the ground. Gripping Krivas' gun hand in both his, he slammed his wrist against stone, making him drop the Magnum with a cry of pain. Krivas bucked his body wildly, clawing at Bodie's head and neck with his free hand, but Bodie rolled backwards, using his grip on Krivas' wrist to catapult the other man away, sending both of them tumbling down the rubble.

Both men immediately scrambled to their feet, but Bodie was a fraction faster. He plunged straight at Krivas, carrying him backwards to slam into the wall. His hands closed on the mercenary's throat, the thumbs driving down onto the carotids.

Krivas struggled desperately, but he was already winded and Bodie's superior weight pinned him against the wall. His right hand was still numb and the left was trapped between their bodies. His searching fingers found the hilt of his sheathed knife, but he could not move his hand to draw it...

On-coming dark sang into his mind. Through the greyness he could see nothing but the blue of his enemy's eyes, deep and angry and totally merciless.

Bodie felt Krivas' struggles grow weaker and knew he could kill him as he chose.

"You're no better than he is!"

The words came from the past and from the depths of his mind, but they were so loud and clear that they caused Bodie to glance round at the unmoving body huddled only a few yards away.

Ray...

The berserker fury drained away, leaving him shaken and sickened and grief-stricken, but in control of his anger. He relaxed his grip on Krivas' throat and pulled away slightly.

Krivas' hand jerked upwards, jabbing the hilt of the knife hard into Bodie's stomach. Bodie gasped and stepped back. Krivas followed him. Bodie somehow managed to block the knee Krivas aimed at his groin but there was nothing he could do about the simultaneously delivered fist that crashed into his stomach, the knife hilt reinforcing it. The blow emptied his lungs and replaced the air with pain. As he folded, Krivas followed it with an even harder blow in exactly the same spot.

Krivas straightened slowly, rubbing his throat with his right hand as he looked down at Bodie's writhing figure. He kicked him viciously for good measure, then sauntered over to where Doyle lay, picked up the fallen Smith & Wesson and put it in his belt, before going to retrieve his own Magnum and Bodie's carbine.

The tearing pain was ebbing very, very slowly. It was becoming, if not tolerable, at least of a degree that Bodie's mind was capable of acknowledging as intolerable. He still couldn't breathe, couldn't move his limbs, but somehow he forced his eyes open, only to see Krivas outlined against the grey and a knife held carelessly in his hands.

He loomed over Bodie, grinning at his captive's helpless fear and fury, then pushed him onto his side with one foot and bent over him. The knife blade flashed as sunlight fleeted from the veiling clouds, highlighting a face above it that was quite, quite mad.

 

No-one had approached Cowley for nearly half an hour now, not since an innocent question from the Chief Superintendent as to how long they were going to have to wait produced a retort of such cold sarcasm that the Super had retreated, deeply offended, and left Cowley with only the rain for company.

The area was now knee deep in CI5 agents, all of whom were longing to take a crack at the madman behind those high, soot-covered walls, but they did not tell Cowley this. Cowley had decided to let Bodie go in alone and, while most of them did not agree with that decision, they knew better than to argue with the Cow about it. Instead, they prepared for the assault that might still have to come.

The shots had startled them all, and the pauses between them were nerve-flaying.

Cowley refrained from trying to call Bodie on the R/T. Even if the interference had permitted it, it might have distracted him at the wrong moment, and there were lives, innocent lives, at stake. He had decided to trust Bodie's experience, his knowledge of Krivas... he still believed he had been right, but so much could go wrong. He began to formulate an alternative plan.

His thoughts were interrupted by a commotion over by the wall. To his amazement, he saw that two small, bedraggled figures had emerged from the drain down which Bodie had disappeared, and were now engaged in a raucous and increasingly physical argument with a number of concerned policemen and CI5 agents.

The children. They were out.

'...if I can get just one of those kids out of there...'

Bodie had done it!

Suddenly, Elliott gave a bellow of rage, and one of the children raced away, charging straight towards Cowley. In the confusion that followed, the other broke away too, coming in the same direction.

Cowley moved quickly to intercept them but, to his astonishment, the first child stopped dead in front of him and demanded, "You Cowley?"

Cowley actually let his surprise show as he stared at the speaker. The thin, chestnut-haired girl with the mud-streaked face and huge, sea-coloured eyes stared defiantly back. The stocky, fair-haired urchin arriving behind her, some way ahead of agent 9/4, said, "Looks like 'im. Sandy 'aired, middle-aged feller, Ray said."

"Oh, he did, did he?" said Cowley, recovering his poise. "Yes, I'm Mr. Cowley." He laid only very slight stress on the 'Mister'.

"Gorra message fer y'."

"Yes? It's all right, Peters. I'll deal with this."

"Yes, sir, but that young hellion over there bit the Chief Super and—"

"I said that I'd deal with it," Cowley told him sharply. He turned back to Jan and spoke with all the old-fashioned courtesy of which he was capable. "You'll be Janice Corrigan. Now, Miss Corrigan, I'll be grateful if you would give me the message."

Jan looked on him with pure approval. "Thank you," she said haughtily. "It's from Ray - Ray Doyle."

"I know Doyle, yes."

"He said to tell you that Krivas is still loose, with a gun, an' that he an' Bodie are goin' after 'im. You're to wait for their call or signal but if you haven't heard from them in an hour, you're to go in after them. With the artillery, Ray said."

"Thank you," Cowley replied. "I'm most grateful to hear it. Now, I understand that your parents are waiting for you..."

"Oh _Lor'_ ," said Mick. The awful vision of his mother loomed before him. "Look, mister, can't we stay an' watch. I mean, we won't be no trouble..."

"Ah, I'm sorry, but..."

"But we got to know if Bodie an' Ray're okay, ain't we?" Jan gave Cowley the appealing look she had been practising in secret for months to use on her mother when she asked for a pony for her next Christmas present.

Mick opened his mouth to add something, and Jan trod hard on his foot. He yelped.

"I assure you that Bodie and Doyle are perfectly capable of looking after themselves and of taking care of Krivas, Miss Corrigan--" Cowley stopped dead.

From somewhere inside the church grounds, someone had yelled, the words faint and indistinguishable, and they were followed by the crack of a gun.

Krivas, Cowley thought. That was the .44. He waited for return fire. It didn't come.

Forgetting about the children, Cowley ran towards the cars and the CI5 agents waiting for him.

Jan and Mick looked at each other with silent understanding, and followed most quietly and unobtrusively at his heels.

 

"You're going to die very, very slowly," Krivas crooned, his knife moving out in a stroke meant to slice Bodie's hamstrings and cripple him permanently. Bodie gritted his teeth, against the pain he still felt, the pain to come.

The shot was totally unexpected, both to Bodie and to Krivas. Through the haze of pain, Bodie watched Krivas' face contort to a scream...

It was impossible. The shot had come from behind Bodie, at an upwards angle, striking through Krivas' groin and into his vitals. Krivas clutched at himself, blood spouting between his fingers. His knees buckled, slowly giving under him, as the knife clattered down on the rocks.

Bodie whooped breath back into his lungs. Ignoring the pain, he forced himself to his knees, and turned.

His eyes met Ray Doyle's.

His partner lay on his side on the ground where he had fallen. Blood was running down his face and the hand that held Krivas' bent and battered rifle was shaking, but he was alive.

Strength surged through Bodie. He staggered to his feet and kicked the knife away. Krivas was still screaming, writhing in dreadful agony, his blood streaming out and soaking away into the earth. Bodie knew that there was nothing anyone could do to help him... save one thing. Well, in the next five minutes it would all be over anyway... and that screaming...

He crossed to Doyle, took the rifle from unresisting fingers and, very calmly, shot Krivas between the eyes. The awful sounds ceased.

Bodie dropped the rifle to one side and knelt beside his partner, trying to wipe the blood from his face. Doyle was chalk-white, trembling, and very cold.

"Bodie..." he whispered.

"I wouldn't leave a rat in that kind of agony," Bodie said shortly.

"I know..." Doyle twisted his fingers into Bodie's jacket and held on tightly, not looking at his partner's face. I couldn't... make a clean... kill..."

"It wasn't possible. Hey, mate, I'm the last person to be complaining." Bodie was gently examining Doyle's head wound as he spoke. "Just a crease. That gollywog haircut has its uses, after all." He paused, then added, "I was sure he'd killed you."

Doyle laughed painfully. "So was I."

"Hold on, Ray. We'll soon have you out of here." Bodie unshipped his radio and switched it on. "3/7 to—" No. Damn the code signs. "Bodie to Cowley. Do you read?"

"Cowley." Bodie might almost have imagined that there was relief in Cowley's voice. "What's the si—?"

"Get an ambulance in here," Bodie interrupted. "Doyle's been hurt."

Bodie heard Cowley yelling off the mike, then the Chief's voice came again: "Is Doyle badly hurt?"

"No. I don't think so."

"What about Krivas?"

"Dead," Bodie said succinctly. "Bodie out." Then, to Doyle, "Come on, sunbeam, let's get you where it's dry."

And where you don't have to look at that thing on the rocks, he added, to himself.

Despite Doyle's protests, he helped him to his feet and half-carried him into the shelter of the church porch. "You're shivering..."

"I'm bloody shaking," Doyle snapped back. "Damn it, Bodie, that was too close."

"Yeah, but we're still here." Bodie took off his own jacket and wrapped it around Doyle's shoulders, then sat down beside him and pulled him against his shoulder. "You'll be warmer in a minute, and Cowley'll be here soon with that ambulance."

Doyle did not answer.

The rain had nearly ceased. A shaft of sunlight broke through the clouds and touched the church tower, the toppled cross standing black against the brightness. Around them, the world was desolate. They might have been the only two people on the planet.

"Well, at least the storm's over now," Bodie observed.

Doyle didn't seem to hear him. "It's all my fault..." he whispered. "The deaths... rape... none of them... would have happened... if I'd let you kill Krivas... four years ago... All my fault..."

"Like hell!" Bodie's reaction to the guilt in Doyle's voice was instinctive. " _I_ decided not to kill Krivas. If you want someone to blame, blame me."

Doyle took a painful breath and looked up at Bodie. "No. I stopped you. I said..."

"You didn't stop me," Bodie interrupted, the despair and pain in the green eyes forcing him into producing a convincing argument to back his denial. "You challenged me to prove that I wasn't the same as Krivas - and I'm grateful. If I'd killed him, I'd've enjoyed it. Perhaps on some universal scheme of things it would have been better if I had, but that sort of judgment's beyond any man: I've learned not to see either of us as the Hand of God. And killing for pleasure is another kind of madness - one I've seen destroy men before. I think you may have saved me from that. It's a little late, but thanks, mate. And thanks for saving my life just now."

"But I wanted to kill him," Doyle insisted.

"You wouldn't have _done_ it, though, if it hadn't been necessary. You had no choice and, God help you, Ray, you're not getting any kicks out of it."

"You sound... so damn sure... of that."

"I'm positive." As Bodie spoke, the spreading sunlight engulfed them. It felt like a benediction. "You've got to learn to have more faith."

"In you - or in me?"

"Either. Both. Yeah, both. Recipe for survival, sunshine."

Doyle found he could not muster any arguments, or stop himself from smiling at Bodie. "You could be right."

"I'm always right."

Doyle laughed outright, then winced as the pain shot through his skull. He relaxed into the comfort of the sunshine and Bodie's grip as Cowley and Elliott came splashing into the church.

The storm was really over.


End file.
